Camondo, Paris

The Entrance Court of the Nissim De Camondo Museum, Paris.

The Devoted Classicist is sometimes asked to recommend a "secret" place in Paris that can be visited.  As an instructor for a course at Parsons Paris that I developed where all the class sessions were held at historic sites, I took my students to a number of locations not regularly open to the public.  But one of the most rewarding venues requires no special permission, and yet it is not frequently visited by tourists.  The Nissim De Camondo Museum, part of the Musees Et Monuments De France, is an extraordinary destination for all those interested in the decorative arts.

The original construction drawing for the garden facade.

When Count Moise de Camondo inherited the Napoleon III style family home at 63 rue de Monceau in 1910, he razed it and spent the next three years working with architect Rene Sergent to create a residence as a suitable setting for his collection of mostly Louis XVI period furnishings.  The purchase of period boiserie in 1911 determined the height of the windows, and certain pieces of furniture and tapestries warranted special architectural detailing to accommodate them.  While some of the decorative door and window hardware was collected as antique, reproductions were made as needed.  The staircase balustrade was executed in partly gilt wrought-iron by the Bagues firm after the original at the Hotel Dassin in Toulouse.

The prinicpal floor plans of the Nissim De Camondo Museum, Paris.

As currently interpreted, it is not a house museum in the usual sense.  Originally, reproductions were some times employed until the desired antique was acquired.  When the museum was opened, any contemporary pieces added for utility and/or comfort were removed, and the contents are displayed for viewing rather than to reflect a residential arrangement.  So it takes a little imagination to see it as someone's home, and these images show some of the furnishings relocated for a better camera angle.  But it is a remarkable museum experience, none-the-less, and a great treat to visit as it is almost deserted on a typical summer weekday when other museums like the Louvre are packed.

The main staircase, the Nissim De Camondo Museum.

Some highlights of the collection will be presented in the next post, but here is a survey of the principal rooms.

The Grand Bureau, the Nissim De Camondo Museum.

The provenance of the oak boiserie of the Grand Bureau is not known.  The Aubusson tapestries depict the "Fables of La Fontaine" after Jean-Baptiste Oudry.

The Grand Salon, the Nissim De Camondo Museum.

The white and gilt boiserie in the Grand Salon or Salon Dore comes from a townhouse at 11 rue Royale.  The seating suite by Jacob is upholstered with Aubusson tapestries.

The Salon Huet, the Nissim De Camondo Museum.

The Salon Huet is named after the famous series of paintings by Jean-Baptiste Huet depicting an arcadian romance.  The white marble chimneypiece come from the Hotel Jean-Joseph de Laborde, rue Lafitte, Paris.

The Dining Room, the Nissim De Camondo Museum.

The boiserie of the Dining Room in green rechampi (meaning glazed in various tones) is partly 18th century.



The Petit Salon, the Nissim De Camondo Museum.

 The walls of the Petit Bureau are upholstered in a cerise stripe-on-stripe fabric, a replacement of the original in the late 1980s restoration.

The Bedroom of the son Nissim, the Nissim De Camondo Museum.

The bedroom of the son Nissim de Camondo features a portrait of his grandfather of the same name and a steel and gilt bronze bed, circa 1790-1795.

The Bedroom of Moise, the Count de Camondo.



The view of the Count's bedroom shows a circa 1775 chest by Mathieu-Guillaume Cramer and a circa 1780 armchair a la reine by Georges Jacob.

The Library, the Nissim De Camondo Museum.

The Library of oak boiserie looks down on a private garden adjacent to the house and Parc Monceau beyond.

The Salon Bleu, the Nissim De Camondo Museum.

The Salon Bleu was formerly daughter Beatrice's bedroom.  The color of the silk on the walls is called "the queen's hair".

Sister and brother, Beatrice and Nissim de Camondo, 1916.

Both Moise de Camondo and his wife Irene Cahen d'Anvers were from prominent Jewish banking families.  When they divorced in 1901, the Count was granted custody of their two children, Nissim, born in 1892, and Beatrice, born two years later.  Nissim was a fighter pilot in World War I and was killed in action in 1917.  The death meant the end of the Camondo name.  Perhaps influenced by his cousin Isaac's bequest of his collection to the Louvre which was dispersed among three other museums, Moise's will left the house and the furnishings to the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, to be kept together as a collection bearing the name of his son Nissim de Camondo.  The museum opened in 1936 after the Count's death in 1935.  Beatrice, who had married composer Leon Reinach in 1918 and had two children, inherited a large fortune on her father's death.  But she and her familiy were forcibly taken from their home during the German occupation of Paris, and were killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944.

All the color photos and the floor plans shown come from the 1991 book The Nissim De Camondo Museum published by the Musees et Monuments de France and sold in the museum bookstore as a guide to the collection. Both English and French versions of the book can be purchased here.